A DREADNOUGHT ESSAY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 74, 1 August 1913, Page 2

A DREADNOUGHT ESSAY.

SOME HOWLERS. The Grey Star .held an essay competitinon in connection with the visit pf H.M.S. New Zealand, which was fudged by Mr W.. S. Austin, Inspector of Schools at Grcymouth. In a covering memo. Mr Austin writes : ; “Following are some odd remarks made by writers in the New Zealand Battleship Essay Competition. These, as you will readily perceive, helped considerably to relieve the tedium of the judge’s work., > The ‘New 5 Zealand’ was built on the Clyde by a large number of New Zealanders who were then at Home. She was presented by the people of England to the Imperial Government of New Zealand. ; H.M.S. New Zealand was launched on the Clyde in the presence of Sir foseph Ward, and the honourable lady cut the cord and she hope to God it would never need to be used. The battleship weighs about 12,000 pounds. She is nineteen tons in weight. She carries 190,000 tons of water. The Now Zealand is SOO yards long, 100 yards wide, and has armour plate 12 feet thick. She cost £20,000. She has four propellers and an udder. The battleship has torpedo masts. On the masts are rope ladders which 1 die sailors climb up to balance the ' ship. She has Pelorous Jack on board fitted with wireless telegraphy. She came into view' in her shining • coat of armour. The New Zealand could lay six miles ! of the coast and fire one of her twelve-inch guns and Kumara would be nothing. She could lie over ten thousand miles out from the north tip-head and firing broadside her eight guns eojdd pour into Grcymouth lb I tons 1 of shells every minute. When one of these guns is fired it penetrates twelve inches of steel and then explodes. .The battleship, landed at Greymouth. ' Some of the ladies had to go home : without pads in their hair and it 'hung all over their. head and it nearly drove them mad. The New Zealand was the first ship that has 1 ever gone south of the equator. New Zealand was willing to near her part as well ns the other parts of the Empire. ,\;; night if a cry of “man overboard” is heard, an officer at once let'- 1 slip a handle, and as soon as the boat touches the water if hursts into 1 a flame, then the men in the boat can see when’ the man is and how they can rescue him. Captain Lionel Halsey is captain of ■- H.M.S. New Zealand, hut as he lives |,iy,.l.iim.self in his own apartments the ’ responsibility falls "to Commander Grace. ''Twei'ything on board of her I shines like Ibe film : wo then sang Britannia rules the waves. J